


Scotch Tape and Christmas Eve

by Kinggorilla



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Christmas Party, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-26 02:57:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17133743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kinggorilla/pseuds/Kinggorilla
Summary: "Not all people are cut out for the party life."This was bugging me for most of yesterday, so I sat down and ripped it out in one shot.My apologies if it's a little rough around the edges.Intermittent salty language and cocktail wieners in bbq sauce. You were warnedHat tip to the gracious Sophiehatt3r, the inimitable Samcaarter, the redoubtable bethanyactually, and the unsinkable ProfessorTennant.  Hopefully, you recognize your influence.  Hugs to lots of others who contributed in too many ways to name.





	Scotch Tape and Christmas Eve

Colonel Jack O’Neill sat alone at the big, empty conference table in the briefing room, slowly swiveling his chair from side to side with the regularity of a grandfather clock’s pendulum. The room was dark, except for a single light over his chair. As he swiveled, the muted fluorescent bulb picked out highlights of silver in his salt and pepper hair. Idly tracing the black inlay on the tabletop with a forefinger, he listened to the sounds of mirth and merriment bubble up from the lower level. The Christmas party was in full swing.

Stargate Command operated facilities on seven major worlds, innumerable observation posts, and an unguessed-at number of communications intercept arrays, as well as coordinating with all of their off-world allies. A staggering amount of data went through Cheyenne Mountain every day, which in turn, necessitated an equal number of people to keep an eye on it.

Not all Earthbound peoples celebrated Christmas, and definitely _none_ of the non-terrestrial species did, so the fact that this was Christmas Eve was irrelevant. As much as possible, schedules were juggled so those with families could be with them, but the core functions of the SGC went on as normal, which explained O’Neill’s presence here. It also explained the presence of Teal’c and Daniel Jackson. It did not, however, explain the presence of Major Carter, who by all rights should have been with her family.

In the control room, an impromptu party had been thrown together, and it was the sound of this that drifted into the conference room. As ranking officer on base at the moment, O’Neill could have shut it down, and probably would have if it hadn’t been his idea in the first place. He could just barely hear Jackson singing ‘O Tannenbaum,’ and waffled on whether that was going too far or not. Taste was such a subjective thing.

He glanced at his watch. Almost 21:00 hours; in the civilian world that would be 9 p.m. General Hammond would likely be reading “Twas the Night Before Christmas” to the grandkids right about now. Soon there would be visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads. He really wished there would be visions of something dancing in _his_ head.

Uncharacteristically, he was facing away from the gate. The giant stone ring normally fascinated him, but at the moment, he was repulsed by it. Well, maybe not _repulsed_ , to be honest, but he was feeling ambivalent.

This had been a hard year. They had lost a lot of good people. 

This installation was a bulwark; a fortress; the first and best line of defense humanity had. If push came to shove, whoever was in command of the SGC would spend every last life under the mountain to safeguard Earth. Those decisions were surprisingly easy.

It was living with the consequences of those decisions that was hard.

No one at the Cheyenne Mountain facility was a nameless, faceless nonentity. They worked, sweated, ate, fought, and died together. They knew each other’s strengths, shortcomings, stories, and families down to the goings-on of the youngest child. The loss of one was like a hammer-blow to all, echoing through the base from Hammond’s office to the janitor’s rec room.

It wasn’t common knowledge outside the SGC, but in corridor 1A leading up to the embarcation room, between the OSHA-mandated fire control apparatus and the blast door, was a section of once-bare smooth concrete wall. This wall was treated with the reverence usually reserved for sacred relics.

Permanently affixed to the wall were a number of small brass slips, each bearing the name and rank of personnel who had gone through the gate and never returned. Airmen, sailors, soldiers, Marines, civilians of all stripes were memorialized, forever enshrined on the SGC’s version of Holy Ground.

There had been only a handful when the practice started at the suggestion of Major Kawalsky, of all people, little guessing his own name would soon be added.

Now there were dozens.

Dozens.

It hurt O’Neill’s heart, every time he walked past it. Sure, he could have, and sometimes did, choose to remember the soul-stirring bravery and selfless acts of heroism most of those brass slips represented. But it wasn’t sufficient compensation for those friends who were gone. He knew, by heart, the location of the slip of each and every one.

The investiture of every new slip was accompanied by a short informal ceremony, attended by the deceased’s squad mates and/ or co-workers, depending on the situation, usually no more than five or six people at most.

This year, they had hung a slip for Janet, and it had nearly killed him.

It had nearly killed them all.

Yes, there had been a formal memorial ceremony in the gate room, attended by personnel and dignitaries alike. That had been official. For the record. There had been speeches, a eulogy, flowers given. What happened in 1A was more akin to a private family gathering. The corridor was packed. 

Janet had touched the lives of literally everyone on base, and they had come to give her respect, and honor. Unlike the formal ceremony, people were free to be themselves, to express their feelings in whatever way seemed best to them. There had been few dry eyes in the crowd. Watching one of the burly Marines of SG-5 break down and unashamedly bawl his eyes out had been too much, and he had quietly slipped away. 

Just like he had tonight.

Last year, Janet had invited SG-1 to her home on Christmas Eve. The home she shared with Cassandra; the little oasis of normality she had carved out in a life otherwise thick with the strange, outlandish and inconceivable. Of course, they had accepted. Teal’c didn’t get near enough social interaction with ‘normal’ people. Ironically, despite his three comrades being Earth-born, the same could be said for them.

There were several members of Janet’s extended family present: various nieces, nephews and cousins, but the jewel in the crown, so to speak, had been her grandmother, very old and very Italian. 

The ancient matriarch had greeted each one in turn, and wanted to know all about them, spending several minutes deep in conversation with each. Upon learning that Daniel was something of an historian, she promptly commandeered him for the rest of the evening and could frequently be seen bending his ear about various topics.

The presence of so many civilians had precluded anything in the nature of shop talk, so O’Neill, Carter, and Jackson had reveled in the rarest of sensations: being an ordinary decent citizen. The experience had done wonders for them, helping to unwind parts of their personalities they hadn’t been conscious were wound up tight.

Teal’c had taken the situation wholly in stride with his customary aplomb, and halfway through the evening, when no one could find him, was discovered sitting on a large couch, with a small child on each half of his expansive lap, reading them stories out of an oversized, brightly-colored book.

The only awkward moment had come when grandmother asked how long Jack and Sam had been married, and why they didn’t “wear the bands like a good married couple should.” 

Carter had flushed pink to the ears, and rather than try to explain the nature of their relationship (which he might have had a little trouble explaining to himself, honestly), O’Neill simply said that he had been raised by Irish Protestants who were a little backward on such things. Carter had elbowed him sharply in the ribs, but the explanation had seemed to satisfy the old lady.

The evening had been wrapped in such an air of acceptance and family, that when it was time to go, none felt uneasiness about accepting a good-bye hug from Cousin Edna, or Little Sal, or especially grandmother herself. As they walked down the sidewalk to the nondescript brown government sedan waiting in the driveway, Teal’c commented on their openness and how welcoming they had been. O’Neill reminded him of the times Teal’c had questioned his references to an individual being ‘Good People’, and then let him know that what he had just met was ‘Good People’.

Their last view had been Janet, standing with an arm around Cassandra, both waving to them as they drove away. The evening had left an afterglow that took days to fade. One or the other of them would find themselves smiling for no reason, and then realize they had been thinking about Christmas Eve.

That was how O’Neill wanted to remember Christmas. And Janet.

Tonight’s party had been a little too loud, the lights a little too bright, the tinsel a little too shiny for his mood. He didn’t fault the others. Under other circumstances, he’d still be with them, and likely looking for a lampshade to wear on his head. That’s all it was, he reminded himself: mood. It would come and go. He could have blamed it on a number of other things. 

Psychologically speaking, the holidays should be an emotional minefield for him, but they never really had. It had been tough, after Charlie had died, and that was no lie. 

Christmas had been a bleak, empty affair, rife with ‘going through the motions’ solely for the sake of maintaining some semblance of normality. It would have been much healthier, he knew in retrospect, to have made a clean break and started completely new traditions, but he hadn’t been as wise then as he was now.

Things had gone from bad to worse to completely catastrophic, but once he had rounded the corner of wanting to blow himself up with a nuclear bomb there had been nowhere to go but up. So he had gone up from his nadir, up past simply living and existing to the zenith of saving Earth, not once, but several times. He had forged a new life out of the ruins of the old, and covered that life with honor.

This wasn’t that. This was simply mood.

Frump.

Shockingly, he did get frumpy from time to time.

He’d learned that, when the frump was upon him, the best thing to do was get his grouchy, recalcitrant ass away from everybody else until it passed, as he was doing now. He didn’t know it yet, but he wasn’t going to get the chance to let it go away on its own.

So he sat at the conference table and slowly swiveled from side to side.

In the control room, the party was in full swing. Some enterprising soul had strung tinsel garland around the perimeter of the observation deck windows, and placed a small one-piece artificial Christmas tree on top of Sgt. Harriman’s work console. Walter would bitch about it for the next month as he found imitation pine needles that had shed off the tree, but he wasn’t here to complain, so the tree stood proudly.

The dozen or so personnel crammed in the room made for some close quarters, but the presence of a cheese and cracker tray, ro-tel dip, and little smokies in barbecue sauce provided enough social lubrication for people to get along. There was a large crock pot of chili in one corner of the refreshment table which sat unmolested; no one would claim ownership of it, so by mutual accord, it was left alone on the general theory that it could have been a Goa’uld trap. Alcohol may have been the ultimate social lubricant, but it was forbidden in this inner sanctum, and everyone agreed ro-tel dip was a close second. 

Teal’c stood solemnly at one corner of the table, ‘guarding’, as he put it, the little smokies. When no one was looking he would surreptitiously pop one in his mouth and relish the tangy sweetness. Some of the things he was witnessing made him wonder if there was a gas leak in the room, but he chalked it up to ‘learning about the humans’ and let it go without commentary, washing the meaty confection down with a large swig of fruit punch.

Jackson, abandoning his attempts to get the group to sing Christmas carols, had wheeled in a TV and VCR and a discussion had broken out over which version of ‘A Christmas Carol’ they would watch. Various opinions were given, with the leading contenders being the George C. Scott version and the Bill Murray version. Jackson attempted to overrule on the basis that ‘Scrooged’ was a different animal entirely, but was himself overruled.

Carter, busy ladling cheese dip over tortilla chips, kept waiting for O’Neill’s inevitable and loud interjection that the best version was ‘The Muppets’, but it never appeared. Looking around, she couldn’t find him. A crinkle appeared between her eyebrows, then a full-on frown broke out. Handing the freshly-assembled plate to a nearby airman, she slipped out of the room, missing the heartfelt, “Thank you, Major” he gave her.

She had seen O’Neill leave the room several minutes before, but had assumed it meant nothing more ominous than a trip to the restroom. For him to be absent from a party he had organized indicated something was up, and she was just nosy enough to find out what that something was.

In rapid succession, Carter checked the restroom (just to be sure), ready rooms, dressing area, and locker rooms. Finally, she checked the enormous, drafty embarcation room. Shivering slightly and wondering if it would be worthwhile to find a jacket, she glanced around the cathedral-like space before her eye caught the single light shining through the conference room window.

Mentally kicking herself for not starting there, she started climbing stairs. If he had any official duty to discharge, or needed to take a phone call that would be where he’d do it. The control room would be too noisy and Hammond had locked his office when he left. She reached the top of three flights of stairs, proud of herself for being in good enough shape to not be huffing and gasping for air.

O’Neill was seated at the conference table, facing away from the observation windows and the doorway she was in, slowly rocking from left to right and back again. He gave no sign he was aware of her presence, and she was suddenly sorry she hadn’t made more noise running up the stairs. He was resting his elbows on the table, using a finger to trace the black inlay on the tabletop. His body language proclaimed loud and clear he had come here to get away from people.

Carter firmly believed Christmas was a really crappy time to be alone, but if anyone had earned the right to do whatever the hell he wanted, it was O’Neill. She was trying to slip back out the door without disturbing him when one of the ink pens she habitually wore in her thigh pocket grated against the door frame.

The small sound was large in the quiet room, and as she flinched away from the door frame, she elbowed a water pitcher and serving plate of empty tumblers sitting atop a credenza on the opposite side of the door. She managed to whip around and corral the wayward glasses before they could roll off into the floor, but all hope of making an unnoticed exit had vanished.

She looked up to see him swivel around and look at her with a gleam in his eye that let her know something snarky was about to come her way.

“Major,’ he said in a tone that was half question, half statement.

“Colonel,” she responded automatically. “I, ummm, noticed that you… ah, that is, er, _we_ noticed that you had, err…,” she trailed off into uncharacteristically embarrassed silence.

“It’s a little early for spiked punch and _Auld Lang Syne_ isn’t it?,” he asked earnestly with eyebrows arched. The question and insinuation caught her off guard.

“No, sir,” she said, instinctively straightening to not-quite-at-attention. “I mean, I haven’t had any spiked punch, sir.” She wondered why he had suddenly decided to go hardass on them. He swiveled back, returning his attention to the tabletop.

“Not good enough for ya, Carter?,” he groused. “I spiked it myself.”

The moment of tension passed. He never called her ‘Carter’ when he was really, truly upset; it was as close to teasing her as he ever came. She really liked it when he teased her.

“I’m sure it’s fine, sir, I just haven’t had any yet,” relief washed over her. She knew him well enough to recognize he had sought out solitude because something was gnawing at him. If she was prim and proper, she’d let him be to sort it out on his own.

Yeah, about that.

There was no way in hell she was leaving him alone right now.

“If you don’t mind my asking, whatcha doing, Colonel?,” she quizzed.

Context was everything in their conversations. In this context, her usage of his formal title subtextually said, “I realize you’re teasing me, and now I’m paying you back.” If it had been a serious matter, she’d have fallen back on ‘Sir’.

O’Neill flashed a scowl at her. With the light shining down from overhead, he looked like a bleached version of Satan.

“I don’t suppose,” he bit off in mock aggravation, “that there’s any chance of privacy around here?”

Carter sauntered over to the table and leaned against it, still several feet away. She crossed her arms, bit her lip and looked at the ceiling, as though she was doing really complicated math in her head.

“Nope,” she replied offhandedly, after a moment. “Not a chance.”

If he’d really wanted privacy, he could have simply ordered her from the room. Truth be told, no matter how frumpy he was, Carter always made him feel better, just by being there, if nothing else.

“So?,” she prompted, all innocence.

He went back to drawing imaginary doodles on the tabletop. After a few seconds of this, he got bored with it and quit again. She recognized he was much more agitated than he let on. Whatever this was, he was going to take his time spilling it, and she would have to be patient and let him.

“I was just thinking,” he finally said. “Been a lot of history made around this table.”

There was no way that was what was bothering him.

 _Patience_ , she chided herself.

“You’ve been a big part of most of it, sir,” she reminded him gently. He nodded in reply. She spared him a quick glance, then followed the line of his gaze to see what he was staring at.

On the wall opposite the observation windows, someone had hung three posters of the motivational variety that the Air Force loved so much. As far as motivational value went they were about as valuable as a tuna salad sandwich, but the Pentagon adored the damned things.

The first had a picture of an Airman kneeling by a little girl, ostensibly helping her with something or other. It was labeled ‘SERVICE’. The second was a famous black and white photo showing the Marines raising the American flag over Mt. Suribachi on Iwo Jima. This one was emblazoned ‘VALOR’. The last showed an Army Captain in full dress uniform presenting a tightly folded American flag to a presumably grieving widow dressed in black. It’s caption read ‘HONOR’.

Service.

Valor. 

Honor.

Three qualities that circumscribed their whole world; the Alpha and Omega of their existence. You could find far worse things to serve, she reflected. 

O’Neill’s eyes were riveted on ‘HONOR’. Carter had initially thought this was probably about his son, but she began to get the feeling that there was a closer and more immediate cause. She said nothing, allowing him space.

“I know on an intellectual level,” he began slowly, “that what we do here is of the utmost importance. As hard as you may find it to believe, Carter, I do occasionally operate on an intellectual level.” 

That was self-effacing b.s. and they both knew it, but she let it slide, instead nodding to show she understood.

“We’re the first and best line of defense Earth has,” she affirmed.

“And I also know that a lot of the circumstances we face are not of our own choosing.”

“Warfare is inherently unpredictable,” she quoted military doctrine to him.

“Finally, I know that we are all, ultimately, expendable.”

In his own inimitable way, he was finally getting around to the point. His hands were moving restlessly, so she slipped a pencil out of her pocket and slid it across the table to him. He picked it up with a grateful nod and immediately began swizzling it between his fingers. 

“What I’m having trouble with is reconciling all of that with the revolving-door meat grinder this place is turning into,” he grumbled.

She slid along the table, edging closer. She had a strange look on her face, one he’d seen before but had never been able to exactly define.

“With all respect, sir, this isn’t your first rodeo. You’ve dealt with losses before.”

She kept her voice low and gentle, but there were still layers upon layers of meaning in her words. He dropped the pencil and turned open hands toward her.

“You’re absolutely right,” he admitted. “I’ve had other losses just as bad and the stakes weren’t even this high. I think I may be getting to the point where enough is enough.”

“Meaning what?,” she prompted.

“Meaning I don’t know, Carter. Meaning all of a sudden, I feel really old, and it doesn’t have anything to do with the calendar.”

“Anyone in particular?,” she asked. He shrugged.

“Take your pick: Swanson; Minor; Hickey; Evans; Surowiak. Any of a dozen, maybe two dozen,” he griped.

“Fraiser?,” she interjected.

He leaned back in the chair.

“Fraiser,” he repeated absently. “Yeah, Fraiser.”

He sighed and slid deeper into the chair.

“This flag is presented on the behalf of a grateful nation in recognition of your loved one’s honorable and faithful service,” she softly quoted from memory, looking at ‘HONOR’ the whole time.

His scowl deepened.

“Scant consolation when burying a son or daughter,” he said. “The grateful nation isn’t around for very long after the last shovelful of dirt gets tossed on.”

“There is no token of appreciation equal to the measure of your loss,” she continued. “Please accept this symbol, offered on behalf of the President of the United States and the General of the Air Force.” She’d never delivered the flag and speech herself, but her father had, and she had witnessed both more times than she could count.

He snorted and she started to get a little angry.

“Sir, they’re not trying to make this a contest. They acknowledge right up front there’s nothing that can replace the one who is gone, that’s why the flag is presented as a token, not payment in full. We’re rarely called on to give ‘the last full measure of devotion’ that Lincoln talked about at Gettysburg, but when we do it’s worthy of recognition.”

“They don't know what they’re getting into,” he objected, frustration building. “They never do. There’s no way they can.”

Carter brushed the protestation aside.

“It doesn’t matter, sir. It’s never mattered. Whether you’re talking about the Goa’uld invading Delmak or the Nazis invading France, brave men have always stood against evil and said ‘No more’. This evil may have a different form, but it’s the same darkness, the same tyranny, the same…,” she trailed off, at a loss for words. “The same whatever,” she finally continued, “that humans have faced for ages on Earth. The same kind of people are rising up to face this that faced the Communists, and the Fuhrer before them, and the Kaiser before him. I will not, repeat **not** , _underline **NOT**_ believe that kind of bravery and heroism are empty gestures.” 

She turned and pointed at the three posters, and slowly named them one by one.

“Service.”

“Valor.”

“Honor.”

“Words, Carter. Just words,” he grumped.

She faced him, planted both palms flat on the table and pinned him with a stare.

“Words are what men live by, sir, words they say and mean. Those may be empty words to the rest of the world, Colonel, but those are the words we live by, and if necessary, die by.”

The heat of her response took shook a little of his cynicism loose. Cheeks flushed, eyes blazing with passion, she looked adamant and imperious, standing over him. She also looked incredibly beautiful, a fact he couldn’t help but notice with some trepidation. 

“That’s pretty good, Carter,” he finally commented graciously. “Did your dad teach you that?”

She glanced away, before smiling and giving a little sigh.

“No sir,” she shook her head gently. “You did.”

Something must have changed on his face because she quickly gave the table an embarrassed and nervous once-over.

“Don’t mind me, Major,” he said quickly to cover her discomfiture. “I’m just being a grouchy old coot. That’s why I was up here in the first place.”

“Sir,” she said slowly, still not making eye contact, “I get a little jumpy when you start talking like that.”

“Treason?,’ he needled, “or retirement?”

“Retirement,” she replied.

“Shouldn’t be too bad, Major. You’d be in charge then.”

Carter shook her head.

“It’s been a pretty wild ride. I’d hate for it to end this soon, Colonel,” she rebutted.

She wasn’t teasing now, she was in earnest. He shrugged.

“Are you sure it wouldn’t make things easier?,” he asked softly.

“What do you mean… sir?”

It had taken an iron effort of will for her to not call him ‘Jack’ at that moment.

“There’s a change coming, Carter, I can feel it in my bones,” he said simply. He held up empty hands in response to her quizzical stare. “I can’t explain it, but it’s there all the same.”

“The only constant in the universe is change, sir” she said lightly with a tight grin.

“This is serious, Sam,” he answered softly.

She felt reality contract, expand, and then twist sideways. There hadn’t been more than a handful of times in the years they had served together that he had called her by her given name, and each one of those had been a bonafide Deep Shit Situation. That meant this was serious with a capital ‘S’.

“What do we do?,” she asked simply.

“Eyes and ears open as always, Major,” he replied.

“Inside or outside threat?”

“Not a clue, just intuition,” he answered, lacing his fingers behind his head as he leaned back in the chair again, stretching his cramped back muscles. This was a whole can of worms he hadn’t intended opening just yet.

“Do we tell the others?,’ Carter wanted to know.

“Tell them what? That I’m going nuts? No, thank you,” he said hunching over the table.

She sighed and hugged herself, shivering slightly. This was a lot to unpack all at once; no wonder he had been a little grumpy. Slowly, she put out a hand and gently touched his shoulder.

“Jack?,” she said quietly. “Thanks for sharing.”

He glanced up at her, then did a double-take. 

The single overhead light turned her hair into burnished gold, and picked out the highlights of her cheekbones and chin. She looked angelic, and he was suddenly afraid he might do or say something very foolish. About the only thing he could think of was chewing her out for calling a senior officer by name, but there was no way in hell he was about to do that.

He was aware he was staring at her, knew he should stop, should say something, should do something- _anything_ except keep staring at her. He couldn’t tear his eyes away, they were locked on hers: pools of blue that deepened and deepened and deepened some more until they threatened to suck the soul from his body. Carter’s eyes were locked on his. She wasn’t drawing away; her hand was still resting on his shoulder, both were conscious of the warmth that was growing and spreading from the touch.

She looked away first, just a quick flick of the eyes that traced the line of his jaw and centered on his mouth. He shifted, ever so slightly, and she drew a quick sharp breath, certain that she was only heartbeats away from being kissed. Then his eyes slid over her shoulder and locked on ‘HONOR’.

The moment passed.

He leaned back in his chair, and she mentally cursed the Air Force, regulations in general, and whatever misbegotten offspring of questionable parentage that had thought up the idea of motivational posters.

“Well,” he said, flustered, “that was something.”

“Yes, sir, it sure was,” she agreed, straightening up and resuming her seat on the table.

“Soooo,” he equivocated, playing for a few extra seconds so he could figure out a face-saving way to defuse the situation. “I believe you mentioned punch.”

At that moment, a voice came over the intercom.

“NORAD reports that Santa Claus has crossed from Nova Scotia to Maine. I repeat, Santa is now in the continental United States. We are at DEFCON 5.”

“Yes, punch,” Carter agreed, “assuming Teal’c has left you some.”

“I bet he’s so busy with the cocktail weenies that he hasn’t even touched the punch,” O’Neill replied, taking her elbow and steering her in the direction of the door.

“Could be. They were discussing ‘A Christmas Carol’ when I left to find you. Daniel’s George C. Scott obsession was rearing its ugly head again.”

O’Neill scowled.

“I never should have made him watch PATTON,” he grumbled. “Besides, everyone knows the Muppets did the best ‘Christmas Carol’.”

“Which is the exact point I was waiting for you to make,” she explained.

He stopped at the doorway, and looked at her for a moment.

“Carter, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, but I just have to ask: Why are you here? Me, Teal’c, Daniel, we’re all alone; but you have family. Why aren’t you with them?”

Carter thought for a moment, then seemed to come to a decision.

She reached over onto the credenza, past the overturned pitcher and glasses and spooled off a couple of inches of scotch tape from the dispenser there. Fishing around in her pocket for a moment, she produced something small and green which she taped to the overhead door frame.

It was a small sprig of mistletoe.

“I don’t know why,’ she said, taking his hand and wrapping it around her waist, “that you think I’m not with my family.”

Then she kissed him, and it would have been hard to say which of them was more surprised.


End file.
